T.U.G. News - October 2018

User Group meeting in October

The October 2018 User Group meeting took place at the beautiful University of Winchester campus, hosted by Claire Lorrain who is Head of the Continuous Improvement Unit there.

I was very happy to be back in the position of Chair, but missed Julie Savage our Secretary. Therefore, Matt Burrowes from Triaster stepped in to take the minutes on the day. Another slight variation to the usual structure of the day, appeared in the form of Triaster’s Managing Director and Founder Michael Cousins, who also attended. Mike took the opportunity to speak with the room about the path that Triaster is following and to give an insight into what the future holds.

We had some new faces in attendance on the day and some fantastic conversations, that resulted in new ideas and points to take away.

Presentation by Claire from University of Winchester

Claire gave an inspiring presentation reflecting on the University’s own journey through their Excellence Model and how this has linked to their Triaster Process Library. Claire also gave an insight into what it takes to achieve recognition of excellence at a national level having been awarded the British Quality Foundation (BQF) UK Excellence Award in 2016 and how embedding the Triaster Process Library has helped to drive process and improvement.

Claire also discussed the benefits of involving the student body of the University in the mapping process. The initiative enables the students to gain further qualifications, whilst making a positive contribution to the current and future life of the University of Winchester.

Towards the end of Claire’s presentation, she focused on how the Continuous Improvement Unit are taking a LEAN approach to waste reduction in process. Claire emphasised that ensuring the right data - behind processes - is captured and the right reports run against this, is extremely important.

Workshop One

The group agreed to discuss Document Management, with particular focus on how this relates to attendees own Process Libraries. To begin everyone scoped out the requirements of a Document Management System to fit to their particular industry. This created a lot of constructive conversation and ultimately illustrated that no one system can possibly fit all.

John Stokes from Interserve raised a valid point about ISO compliance, with particular focus on ISO Clause 7.5.3. This helped the group to reach common agreement, that there needs to be both a business definition for a document management system and a technical definition.

The group reflected on how the small Triaster Document Approvals tool might be developed to become a full document management system and provided feedback to Matt and Mike on how this could be achieved.

Update from Libreea

Libreea now deliver all the consultancy and training included with each Triaster system, in addition to a whole raft of other services around process mapping and improvement.

Victoria Hormigo, Libreea’s Managing Director explained how customers could make use of Libreea, who of course deliver the high-quality services which everyone has come to expect from the familiar face of Paul Elson-Vining and Libreea’s new Junior Consultant Jessica Homan, who also attended the User Group.

Workshop Two

Following on from the host presentation, LEAN became the topic of conversation in Workshop two.

Claire provided some more information on how the University of Winchester is using LEAN to streamline processes and reduce waste on a daily basis. One example was how paper registers for lectures and seminars have been completely replaced by key cards, which are swiped by each attendee. This change has significantly reduced the amount of resource required to monitor attendance, which in turn has reduced costs.

Some of the longer standing Triaster users mentioned that they have noticed that the Reports Exchange can no longer be found in the new Help and Support structure. However, it is really useful to have the ability to share reports, particularly ones focusing on waste reduction and identifying areas for improvement. Triaster also agreed that the Reports Exchange is an important tool in enabling such tasks and will reinstate it.

The conversation then shifted on to the culture and reception of a LEAN approach in the wide range of industries that the User Group attendees come from. It was agreed that the best practice in LEAN is to keep it simple where possible and ensure that the entire workforce is kept engaged. This can mean using alternative terminology. Clive from Landmarc no longer uses the term ‘Value Added’, instead talking about ‘Benefits’, a word which is far better understood by the rest of the organisation. Claire uses the term ‘Continuous Improvement’ instead of ‘LEAN’.

Keeping it simple, easy and achieving quick wins ensures continuous engagement. “It does not have to be complicated”, summarises the Workshop discussion well.

Next Main UK User Group Meeting

The next User Group meeting is going to be hosted by Mick Tetley from Galliford Try. The date has not yet been finalised, but if you are interested in attending the next User Group meeting, please e-mail customer.services@triaster.co.uk.

We also have yet to agree a date for the next US User Group meeting. If you would like to register your interest in attending the next virtual meeting, please email customer.services@triaster.co.uk

If you would like to host a meeting, or have any questions about the User Group please drop us an e-mail to user.group@triaster.co.uk

user.group@triaster.co.uk